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CD Reviews

It was the story that threatened to overshadow the album. As early as six years ago, famed guitarist Steve “Luke” Lukather said during promotions for his solo album that the prospects for new Toto music was slim, and probably non-existent. He was ...

This is a great time for music types other than pop, so far as the album format is concerned. As pop music continues its trudge toward becoming a totally separate entity, single-contained and no longer conjoined within the album’s puzzle work, the ...

It’s that time of year again. No, I don’t mean Christmas. I mean it is the time of year when reviewers look back on all the materials they received in the year, and have to come up with their Top Ten Lists, ...

Contrary to my usual statements that I don’t, I do like surprises so long as they’re nice surprises. All too often, surprise is rendered in the “We’ve come to harvest your kidneys for the black market” kind. When you are in ...

It has been a long time waiting for Enchant to either admit they had broken up or get back to making music. The last studio effort, Tug Of War, came out in 2003. The band members went their separate ways, with some ...

There is nothing inherently wrong with a little bit of widdly. If you can play your instrument well, then why not do so. But one always needs to remember that prog and prog-metal are still forms of popular music, if not “pop ...

Following the releases of new albums by David Bowie, My Bloody Valentine and Justin Timberlake, 2013 might go down as the year of the unexpected comeback (your move, Dr. Dre). For lovers of lush, harmony-laden orchestral pop, the most pleasant return ...

At a time when albums are teased, hyped, leaked, dissected, discarded and re-evaluated before they are even officially released, it has become increasingly rare to be able to approach one with fresh ears, no preconceptions and little baggage. Perhaps that’s why I ...

As a music reviewer I try to defer to the Occam’s Razor practice, that your first instinct is usually the correct one, and if you have to sit with a record too long in order to like it, you may not ...

There will probably come a day in my lifetime when doo-wop is no longer performed or recorded as a viable art form. It will then be relegated largely to blaring out of the speakers at classic car shows and the transmitters of ...

A&M has reissued and remastered Alpbert’s Tijuana Brass-free, out-of-print, 1982 solo album Fandango. It’s heavily-Latin and Mexican-influenced, and for real, unlike the vaguely tropical and relatively exotic feel of his most famous work in the ’60s and ’70s, it really shows ...

Trying to listen to a classic, groundbreaking album like Rage Against the Machine with fresh ears two decades after its release can often pose a bit of a challenge. On the one hand, you probably remember the first time ...

“Americana” is all the rage right now, and Dennis takes a look at a few of the best releases (including the latest album from Drive By Truckers frontman Patterson Hood) to come from the genre these last few months.

Damn, Christina. Why are you so damn defensive? She’s a Grammy winning bombshell with a shelf full of Grammy Awards and platinum albums. Rolling Stone named her one of the 100 greatest vocalists of all time before she turned 30. She has ...

It’s almost impossible for the deftones to make a bad album at this stage of their almost 20-year recorded career. However, it’s not impossible for them to continually raise the bar in heaviness with each album. On the bands seventh album, they ...

Five songs is all it takes for one to completely fall under the spell of North Carolina’s Irata. On their latest EP, produced by Kylesa’s Phillip Cope, the duo masterfully create a sonic maelstrom of tribal beats and intricate riffs that lay ...